Module Evaluation

Before I started this module, my original aims were;

To Specialise in the area of storyboard art within the pre-production process, master the philosophies, theories and practical sides of this, and to reach industry standard in the field by applying these skills.

Though these aims do not require me to have fulfilled them by the end of this module in its entirely, as learning is an ongoing process, I feel I have taken several huge steps to becoming more competent at this specialisation. From all of this I have arrived at a set of principles that I can adhere to;

Communication- The ability to communicate visually is the basis for all drawing, especially when a story is crafted specifically around this method of narration. Each image must be able to do its job, which can be creating emotions, visual eye-candy or keeping the pace and flow of a story arc fluid and intact.

Solid Drawing- beat boards, storyboards and animatics rely on strong solid drawing. Without clear economy of line, effectiveness of poses and readable performances, your boards will remain incoherent and therefore fail to tell the story.

Colour and Tone- The addition or deliberate omission of colour and tone of the images further aim to evoke an emotion or visual sensation from the viewer, aiding in the mood of the narrative.

Composition- To carefully and meticulously position frame ‘clutter’, such as objects, architecture, lighting or people to be aesthetically pleasing, emotive and effective to the given moment in the story.

Effective Framing- To decisively frame your image and all of its components-composition and framing walk hand in hand- to further enhance the composition to aid in the communication of the scene, and the final impact the finished product will have on the viewer.

Pace- Understanding the flow of a sequence or story as played out in several frames is key to ensuring a smooth transition from one scenario to the next.

From here, I feel I have gained sufficient insight into how the first steps of storyboarding can be achieved. I now need to continue developing my skills, and applying the basics where I can, and more importantly this will require deeper research and understanding into the language of film throughout the many genres. Also, I feel I would like to further explore what my principles may actually mean and see if I can discover more that may indeed be missing from the list, or what sub-principles there can be within each one. I can do this by pursuing more live briefs and direct storyboard projects. Lastly, my personal style will have to be developed, organically, without forcing it.

From Word to Image

With the composition in place, it was then down to gridding the sequence as it would be presented over two A3 sheets. After that, the rendering of tone, quality of line and shape just becomes a matter of patience as I hurtled towards the mock deadline.

Personally speaking, as with any artist, I find that these final illustrations still need an awful lot of work on a technical level- but for the time I was given, and the fact that I achieved it on the deadline, I'm fairly happy with the results with that in mind.

Applying the Principles

Initial thumbnails of the characters became my starting point, though unlike most projects the perimeters of this mini-brief didn't focus on the aesthetics of these, as this was more an exercise in understanding framing and composition whilst using the format of a comic book.

Mapping out the overall appearance of the panels became one of my chief priorities, and I wanted to gain a quick understanding of how the overall piece would flow in terms of pace. I took into consideration the pitfalls of repeating shots and angles, and tried to ensure that the geography of each scenario correlated with each other.

My original choice of an opening frame. I later revised this in favour of another.

Here it was time to get to grips with starting composition with each individual frame. From everything I had learned in my case study and the discoveries in my dissertation, I started to play around with some of the theories. For example, I used the chest as a means to aesthetically chop up the composition of the scene, framing the char of the head top left and drawing the eye by perspective to the right hand side, to the appearance of the man via view of his legs and feet.

Again, not dissimilar to my attempts on re-boarding the toy story sequence, I opted to create a zig-zag view to naturally lead the eye. With this thinking, my next shot organically dictated itself via a top-angle view. The pillars help create the sense of height via perspective.

Below is what is called a 'safe shot'. Nothing particularly spectacular in design, but it clearly illustrates the distance- literally and figuratively- between the characters. This is paired by some inked thumbnails that illustrate how the shapes of each scene chop up the frame, and ensure the base composition works.

A revision of one of the above frames, here the workings of a comic book come into play where you can insert smaller shots to enhance an element of the story. In this case, I didn't wish to waste an entire space of the page on getting across a facial reaction from one of the characters. Instead I chose to insert it top left, implying his reaction comes FIRST and then the story continues to the moment in the top-view angle.

Beneath that, another revision of the chest and characters. This was merely a subtle alternative I played around with using the composition of the chest in much the same way.

This was my new proposed shot for the opening page- which also altered the pace significantly of some of the prior angles. Here I switch from facing east in the top frame, to facing west in the next, zipping us closer to the characters after the establishing shot.

The last frame shows the confrontation between the two, the first being aggressive the second being defiantly smug. I rejected this frame, due to the poor aggressive intimacy that should be needed with such a heated moment, in regards to framing.

Another revision once again of the same frames. Little appears different, and some re-enforce my initial thinking. For example I insisted on the notion that our protagonist should appear smaller-and by that, inferior- via his seated position and distance in relation to the antagonist who dominates much of the left hand side of the frame, app

earing much larger and intimidating. However the

biggest change is the last frame where I rectify and tighten up the confrontation to a better composition. This also left space for another frame, which I toyed with applying the top-shot angle from an earlier draft.

An exercise in 'over-the-shoulder' shots were needed here, to make an example of how a conversation can flow just by switching the geography of each. Also, one of my particular favourite frames is the rectangular one inserted bottom left, using the legs of both chars to frame the chest which becomes the focal point in that par

t of the story.

Lastly, the bottom frame was an attempted revision of my earlier canted top-view, this time using a straight angle. I still rejected it, in favour of the former.

Once again another revision of some of the earlier frames, ensuring the flow made sense and was relevant to the story as opposed to hindering it.

The script

With all of these skills in mind, and my own set of principles in place, I wanted to actively seek to apply these in a industry standard environment, that would come in the form of a Live brief, of sorts.

Although some offered ample amounts of opportunity to map out certain sequences for animations, and certainly ensured my principles would be applied, none actually seemed to challenge them directly, and even more importantly the vast majority of these lacked that sense of collaboration.

Eventually, I chose an unorthodox route, but one that ultimately paid off. Because of my interests in comic books, and my own illustrations I create for them, I decided to look back on past acquaintances who are in the graphic novel industry. One such contact was artist John Mcrea- a veteran artist who has put his hands to many of Marvel's and DC's titular characters, as well as dozens of obscure projects, as shown on his online profile;

http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/way/xmi94/

After a brief discussion about what my module requires of me, he drafted up a quick script based on the 'Hitman' comic book series, and mocked up an industry standard time constraint for me to adhere to. More importantly, he chose a scene that was wholly lacking in 'action'. Instead this was about two characters interacting. This was perfect for my needs, as what better way to prove you understand framing, composition, solid drawing and pace than trying to make a conversation seem visually interesting? Although I was now entering the realm of comic books, this mini-brief ensures that in order to achieve success I have to apply everything I have learnt about Storyboard art.

With three days given to map out, and illustrate two A3 sheets in a mock up live brief, I got straight to work thumbnailing. Below are scans of the script written out for me.

Re-boarding the sequence

After scrutinising the sequence I began to whittle it back to its essential 'beats' of the story. All boards start off with these, and the purpose of a beat is to capture key moments in the story that act as milestones for the storyboard to reference. In my sketches below, I had interpreted the beats into six moments, and ignored composition and framing with them as it wasn't relevant at this time.

Beat 1.

The Bucket O' Soldiers are issued a direct order.

Beat 2.

They exit room and push onward with their means of communication; a toy 'walkie-talkie'.

Beat 3.

Paratroopers issue the order to jump, and their soldiers are deployed via chutes.

Beat 4.

Soldiers arrive in the main hall, more follow suit via rope as the team progress.

Beat 5.

Soldier's presence are compromised and are forced to assume their 'Toy' stance to avoid blowing their cover.

Beat 6.

The Mother appears from doorway, and accidently steps on the toys, and sweeps them aside in frustration.

With these beats in mind it then became a matter of working out how the scene would unfold revolving around each of these 'moments', similar to an inbetweener animating in and around Key frames.

Page 1.

One of my first changes is the framing of the soldiers being issued their order. The film uses a wide-shot, most likely to remind us of the fact these are only toys within a bucket in a bedroom environment, however I chose to push the 'drama' of this sequence a little further by framing this with a Low Angle shot, comprising of the soldiers all looking to the dominant distant commander as he gives out the order.

In the second frame, my alterations in comparison to the film were minimal. I had in mind a medium-close up of the commander, so we can register the intent and seriousness of his face (possibly to comical effect) and then the camera would pull back sharply, following the geography of his pointing arm.

The third frame is then a no-brainer. Geographically speaking, this sequence then demands, with the pointing of the commander, that the action pushes from right to left. A high angle shot of the soldiers exiting the bucket in that manner achieves this.

Page 2.

Continuing the geography of the scene, I cut to a wide high angle shot, illustrating the reality that these are tiny toys running across a landing- adding some humour in stark contrast to the previous scene's 'dramatic' framing- and also having them continue to push from right to left.

Frame two took a little more working out as it had to achieve several things. Firstly it needed to establish where the soldiers were going- and where they came from in the same frame. I attempted to achieve this by framing the bedroom doorway at the top left (the first thing your eye reads) whilst revealing via a visual cue that something is being moved out of it, yet to be revealed. The progression of the soldiers also reminds us that we are still following the same characters, just from a different angle. Lastly, the camera pans across from left to right, organically, revealing the nearest soldier who peeks around towards us- creating the sense of the action being driven forward.

The third frame cuts to what may have caught our eye in the previous frame. Using a low angle upward shot, we create a false sense of weight and size to an otherwise small object in the real world. This pulls us back into the 'drama' perspective of these toys. The film uses an almost identical frame, however theirs is reversed. My reason for switching it the other way is due to how the geography of my previous frame dictated how we should read the overall moment, without disrupting the pace.

Thumbnails.

Beneath are the original thumbnails planning how this sequence would unfold. I purposefully wanted to create am obscure Zig-Zag effect with the way our eye would read the action. Starting from Right-left (top frame) to Left-Right (bottom frame).

Page 3.

The top frame is merely a continuation of the previous, but this time using a top shot. The direction of the characters and object remains unchanged.

The second frame then places our perspective the other way around- we are no longer looking towards the bedroom watching this event unfold, now we are facing what they are aiming for. The paratroopers issue their order for a jump, and both men are framed on the extreme sides of the frame to create a looming 'gap' that entices us to almost jump forward ourselves.

In the film sequence, it does just that. The camera drops down and follows the paratrooper's progression, mimicking the sense of a true military drop. I don't see any flaw in this at all, however I wanted to see if I could add an alternative. I came up with something with a subtle difference. My framing is deliberately canted, skewing the perspective lines so as to create a false sense of vertigo. You almost create the illusion the camera isn't fixed and is free-falling too, barely able to frame what is happening.

Thumbnails.

Initially I had planned for the camera to drop down with them, with this canted framing, however I chose not to follow through as I would later apply the same technique and wished to avoid repetition.

Page 4.

Top frame continued from last, showing the chutes opening.

Second frame follows the language of film organically, cutting from canted top-shot, to low angle shot, showing the descent of the paratroopers. This also suggests they are nearing to the ground.

Page 5.

The top and middle frames are joined by a single camera action. As the soldier stands guard, allowing a moment's respite from the energetic sequence, the camera swings round to the left via an arc, creating space in the top left for the skipping rope to appear.

Because our eye is drawn to the top left of the frame, the cut to the next scene that naturally leads from top left to bottom right becomes much easier to read.

Thumbnails.

I am personally a huge fan of certain camera movements that can tell several things at once. Framing the nearest soldier to read his expression, showing the distant soldier reeling in his chute, and then swinging to reveal the next 'plot device'.

Page 6.

The top frame switches to a canted top shot again, to create vertigo. However to further push this where the film opted not to, I chose to illustrate the camera following the progress of the soldier as he slides on the rope, hurtling towards the ground.

Finally, a medium close up of all the gathered soldiers ends the current sequence flow, adding a fitting pause in the moment.

Page 7.

Here the soldiers progress on, the top frame shows them in their walking positions. Again, their direction from right-left means that your eye reads each soldier more clearly as they walk past your natural flow of reading.

A cut to a medium close up of the commander reacting to an off-screen sound, raising his hand. Again, his position faces right-left, continuing the sequence flow.

The third frame then arrives at another beat in the story, showing the soldiers assume their 'toy' stance.

Page 8.

Here the appearance of Andy's mum is played out in almost precisely the same fashion as the film sequence. I personally couldn't find a better way to visually show the change of perspective from the soldiers to the reality of the moment. I just love how this high angle shot illustrates perfectly the change in tone, revealing that after all- they are just toys, and they are in her way.

Here I felt that a quick low angle shot could be edited in, revealing the impact her foot has on the toys from -their- perspective, though perhaps this would disrupt the flow of pace.

The last frame, with or without the edit, reveal the mum's dismissal of the toys to the side, arriving at our final beat in the story.

When compared to the film's counterpart, many of my alternative suggestions enhance and enforce some aspects of sequencing that relate to my principles I drew up in my dissertation. However this isn't to dilute or devalue the incredible job the original film does in telling the story. In some cases I was unable to come up with any alternatives, proving that Pixar's storytelling techniques are more often than not water tight.

This case study has offered an incredible insight as to how their design process in storyboard art may have developed in thought process, and has forced me to ignore existing iconography and learn how to see something familiar in a different light.

Case Study

With my dissertation becoming the backbone to my understanding of Storyboard art, it brought into light several facts that I wanted to try out and experiment to prove or disprove my theories. To understand how a sequence may have been created from page to screen, I opted to select a few well known scene from three mainstream animation films, to critically analyse.

Beauty and the Beast. (1991)

One of Disney's great achievements, made famous for this dance sequence that applied revolutionary CGI into the 2d realm of animation, blurring sweeping 3d shots with the tracking movement of the 2d characters. The logistics of this alone may have been considered in the storyboard art sequence, and this potentially demonstrates how leaps in technology could have had an impact on the way storyboard artists would imagine the sequence- a symbiotic effect I discuss in my dissertation.




The Nightmare Before Christmas. (1993)

Another case in point is how storyboarding comes into play with regards to another medium of animation. Stop-motion animation is perhaps the closest it can get to being outright live action film-making. It certainly shares many of the logistical problems and issues, and the important element of the camera physically framing the moment, as opposed to cell animations where the frame can be dictated at the artist's whim- because it does not physically exist.

We can see in this Introduction scene from the film, the sweeping shots, morphing and edits are a clear mixture of film-making sensibilities and animation principles. Making board sequences for this film will have invariably resulted in the ideology of both mediums clashing and gelling together.






Toy Story. (1995)

This sequence illustrates many of the principles of animation, but more importantly it also pays homage to several film genres- with the nature of the characters and their behaviour mirroring the tone of war films for comical irony. This is also aided by many of the dynamic shots chosen, the stand-out one being the drop down angle following the paratrooper's descent from the banister, mirroring the atmosphere of a real military drop. Most obviously, Toy Story was one of the first animations to actually be presented like a film. The shots are mimicking the idiosyncrasies of pure cinematography, and even the nature of the story had a cinematic flair to it that the crew at Pixar took very seriously. This also shows in the storyboarding where the framing and choice of angles were treated almost like a live action film, and even further where CGI could offer unrealistic but entertaining framing.

In order to fully appreciate why some shots were selected, I decided to apply the pre-production process to a small segment of this video and to strip it down, working backwards and re-boarding the sequence again with room to select my own angles and to justify alterations or unaltered frames, in the hopes if understanding why some of these shot decisions were made.